Michael D. LaFaive is director of fiscal policy for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. He has been researching MEGA since its inception in 1995.

Michael J. Hicks, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of economics at the Air Force Institute of Technology and a research professor at the Center for Business and Economic Research at Marshall University in Huntington, W. Va.

The views expressed in this thesis are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense or the U.S. government.